by V. St. Clair
It sounded annoyed at having to repeat itself. Topher frowned thoughtfully.
“So my Gift is…to make it look like I don’t have a Gift?” Topher reasoned out, confused. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Your Gift is me. My Gift is secrecy.
Topher was still trying to puzzle out the full meaning of this when he snapped awake and found himself staring up at Jessamine. For the first time in living memory, he wasn’t thrilled to see her.
“Damn it, I was finally making progress,” he snapped, trying to sit up but finding himself lacking the strength to do so. Upon closer inspection, he was shaking and covered in sweat.
“Too bad, because I’m not letting you kill yourself just to get answers. There’s nothing that says you have to solve this entire puzzle in one night. Now drink this.” She tipped a glass of water into his mouth before he could protest, and Topher gulped it down to avoid choking.
“I saw something new tonight,” he explained as soon as he finished swallowing. “We were in space—on a ship over Elaria.”
“Who’s ‘we?’ ”
“There was a scientist—I think the one who discovered elarium and its potential for tech. Someone from the military was there too, but I didn’t recognize anything on the uniform so I’m not sure what his rank was. Maybe a captain?”
“And you were on their spaceship.” Something about the way Jessamine said it was odd, but Topher was too caught up in his own thoughts to give it heed right now.
“Yes, and there was a pile of elarium ore there too—we were in some kind of medical bay or lab.” He knew he was doing a poor job of explaining himself. “The scientist was telling the captain about the potential value of elarium, and saying they’d messed up by deploying the Sarin to terraform the planet and that it could chemically alter the elarium and make it worthless if they couldn’t find a clean sample to preserve—something about stabilizing it, though I have no idea how.”
“Sarin?” Jessamine looked startled, and Topher just realized he hadn’t told her much about it.
“Oh, sorry, it’s a—”
“A gas,” she finished, squinting as though searching her own memory. “Colorless, sharp odor…”
“How in the world do you know that?” Topher asked, astonished.
“I’ve heard of it before, somewhere.” Jessamine frowned thoughtfully. “For the life of me I can’t remember where, but it must have been one of the history lessons from when I was a child.”
“Do you think you could look it up again?” he asked her. “I mean, we know it was involved with early colonial terraforming, so it shouldn’t be too hard for us to search the archives and find a reference to it. It would independently corroborate what I’m seeing in my head as real, because a small part of me still worries I might be losing my mind and making all of this up.”
Jessamine nodded slowly and said, “It’s a good idea. Not that I think you’re crazy, but I don’t see how you can possibly be seeing all of these things that happened hundreds of years ago in your head.”
“The voice in my head was different this time—angry, or annoyed. It kept giving me one-word answers, and it seemed not to like the memory it showed me.”
“But how can it be showing its own memory, unless it was there in the spaceship with you?”
Topher hadn’t considered this before.
“You’re right. Maybe it’s the scientist I’ve been hearing in my head all this time. He’s obviously incredibly smart, to be in charge of the analysis of Elaria as a suitable colony at a time when Earth was desperate to evacuate the rest of humanity to a new home. He was also in the other memory where I saw him deploying the Sarin.”
“What about the one where you were on the banks of the Silver River? You said you didn’t see anyone else there.”
Topher frowned. “Well, the spaceship was overhead, so maybe he was up there? Or maybe he was nearby somewhere and I just didn’t see him; there was ore everywhere. It’s not unrealistic for him to have been behind a mound of it and I just missed him.”
“But I thought you said the voice in your head was feminine, so it wouldn’t be the scientist, would it?”
Topher looked pensive. “Well, I’ve always thought of it that way, but not really because of how it sounds, it’s just my impression of it. I could have been wrong.”
Jessamine didn’t look satisfied by this answer, though Topher was increasingly convinced it was the scientist intruding into his thoughts. True, he had always thought of the voice in his head as feminine, but he had no real basis for his judgment. What if the brilliant scientist had found a way to preserve his consciousness across centuries and was reaching out to Topher now to prevent some big disaster? What if he could tell them about why the Isolation happened and how to end it?
“It’s possible…” Jessamine allowed, still skeptical. “But then how was he there during your testing at thirteen? Don’t tell me there was a five-hundred-year old scientist hiding behind one of the Provo-Minor in the clock-tower and you just missed him there too.”
Topher snorted in amusement.
“No, he wasn’t physically there, but there was a ton of imbued elarium in the tower with us. He told me in my vision just now that I’m Gifted—sort of, and that’s why I can hear his voice inside of my head. Apparently it’s my Gift, or his Gift.”
Jessamine couldn’t have looked more shocked if he had just announced his intent to throw himself out the window.
“You—you’re Gifted, too?” She leaned closer, touching his face with her hands and searching his eyes as though trying to detect the lie. “How is that possible? You shouldn’t be able to use Talents if you’re Gifted, and the Minors would have known—”
“I know, but he said that was his Gift, keeping it a secret or something. I don’t know, I don’t fully understand that part; you pulled me out of the vision just as I was asking him about it, and he wasn’t very clear about explaining himself. He said I wasn’t like the others, that he was desperate, but I don’t know if it means I’m truly Gifted or if I’m borrowing his Gift in some way.” He sighed. “I told you about the vision I had before, how the orb turned green for me but I was the only one who seemed to notice, and then he burned my mind to keep me from admitting it to the Minors afterwards and accidentally took away my memory of the entire event.”
Jessamine looked deeply worried.
“I don’t know what to say, Topher. This seems like it’s becoming much bigger and more important than the two of us. Maybe we should bring other people in on this to try to understand it properly…”
Topher panicked.
“No, we can’t. You know word will spread like wildfire, no matter how much we try to contain it, and the scientists will have me strapped to one of those horrible chairs with my peers watching them dig around in my brain for whatever might be in there. You’ll have to strip me of my rank for being Gifted—unless you’ve shoved through a law I don’t know about yet that says Gifted can wear Talents and become Majors.”
Jessamine relented.
“You’re right, I know.” She exhaled unhappily. “I just wish we could have help in understanding this. If the scientist really is inside your head, and if he has a Gift he is loaning you, then that means the Gifted were present on Elaria from the very beginning of the colonization. All of our records show there were no Gifted from Earth, and the original Gifted didn’t manifest until years after the colonization of the planet, but this would predate all of that. So either our records are incorrect, have been altered, or we’re wrong about who the voice in your head belongs to and it is from someone living after the Isolation started, when the Gifted first emerged.”
Topher absorbed this in silence. She was right. Either all of their records were wrong or they were missing something important.
“And if the scientist is Gifted, and he is inside your head, then why now, after all this time? Why you? What does he hope to accomplish by showing you these things, and how do we eve
n know he’s on our side and trying to make us successful? We don’t know anything about this disembodied voice other than it is in your head whispering confusing warnings. Is it seeing everything you see or getting its information from elsewhere? Is it trying to shape events in our best interest or does it have its own agenda?”
“There’s a new and scary thought,” Topher mumbled, suddenly cold. He had been so quick to trust the voice in his head, he’d never even considered it might not be at all aligned with his interests and only using him as a pawn. “You’re right, of course, about all of it. I don’t see what we can do to figure this out though, other than continuing to dive into his visions and trying to get him to explain enough for us to piece together the puzzle on our own.”
Jessamine didn’t look like she had any better ideas, but it wasn’t a comforting thought.
“Ok, let’s just…take it slowly,” she agreed at last. “We both need time to think about what you saw, and to do some independent research and see what fits together. We need to be more strategic about this and less random, and we need to plan what questions you are going to ask it in advance of your visits so we can optimize the value of them.”
Topher nodded, glad to have her planning and supportive when he was at a loss for what to do next.
“Now go back to the beginning and tell me everything that happened in those visions. Every detail you can remember. What things looked like and what was said.”
He nodded again and closed his eyes.
“Alright. The first time I touched the emblem, at my mother’s house, I felt myself falling through blackness…”
24
Maxton Mercuria
Max was the happiest he had been in a long time.
He had attended three separate seminars on the mechanics of building rocket engines in the last month, and had an interview with a prominent manufacturer of them in a week. Space travel had always interested him, but until now he never had a chance of being allowed anywhere near it. With the Vicereine’s new employment initiative, he still wouldn’t be able to actually fly in a spaceship—all the elarium wiring would go haywire—but he could at least design and build components of it, which was the next best thing.
The prospect of work wasn’t the only thing making him happy these days. Ever since Ana had come into his life he had begun thinking the future might not be so bleak after all. She had spent the last few weeks holed up in the Augenspire for meetings as part of her new position, and often came home complaining of obnoxious Minors or needless bureaucracy, but Max could tell how much she enjoyed her new role. Ana loved being a revolutionary and a fighter, and even though she was working with people who were once considered enemies, there was no doubt she was working to change the world.
Of course, he still worried terribly for her for being in the limelight of an initiative bound to be unpopular with certain people in power. They still hadn’t caught whoever was murdering the Gifted at night, and there had been two more bodies found in the last six weeks. After Risa told them about her unpleasant encounter with Major Andro in the Augenspire they were on high-alert for danger, even though they had told Major Topher and he said he would take care of it.
But Topher was inscrutable on the best of days and he hadn’t shown any expression when they told him about the encounter between Risa and Major Andro, nor had he followed up with them since. Maxton was determined not to have it be Ana he was reading about in the news one day—not for being murdered, at least.
So, against his better judgment, he had been wandering the streets of downtown Silveria alone late at night, daring someone to attack him. He kept his emblem in plain sight and took care to appear unarmed and nonthreatening, hoping to present an easy target. Based on the emblem analysis Jessamine had Ryker do after each murder, most of the victims had time to see and be properly terrified of their assailant before being murdered, which is what Max was counting on. He needed to see who the attacker was and then create a portal for himself—without actually being murdered—so he could report to Jessamine and end this thing.
That was the plan, at least. He knew how many things could go horribly wrong with it, and the sheer stupidity involved with putting himself out there as a target, which is why he had neglected to tell any of his friends—or Ana—about it.
If the killer doesn’t do me in, Ana will when she finds out about this.
He grimaced at the thought, wondering for the millionth time why he couldn’t just be satisfied with being happy for a change. Why risk everything?
Because I know this happiness can’t last forever until we clean up the Provo.
Max turned down an alley and walked behind the shops rather than in front of them. Despite word getting out about a murderer on the loose in downtown Silveria, there were still a number of people using the back alleys to avoid the congestion of the main roads. He passed a couple who were holding hands and laughing as they walked under a street light without a care in the world.
Well, they aren’t Gifted, so I guess they don’t have anything to be afraid of other than muggers.
Maxton wondered what it would be like to have such a carefree life, but quickly dismissed the thought. This was definitely not the time or place to let his mind wander.
He passed the duo and a handful of others, turning down another back street and letting his feet carry him down the vaguely familiar path. If he continued on in this direction for a few miles, he would eventually reach Hera’s house.
The buzz of his communicator was loud in the relative quiet of the side street, and Max winced at the noise and pulled it out of his pocket to silence it.
It was Ana.
Knowing there would be hell to pay for ignoring her, he silenced the communicator and pushed it back into his pocket. If he answered her now, she would want to know where he was, which would lead to a lot of other questions he didn’t really want to answer. Besides, the last thing he needed was to be on the phone when looking for a murderer.
The crunch of gravel somewhere behind him drew his attention, and Max’s heart raced as he whirled around to look for the source of the noise, hand on his emblem.
There was no one there—no one he could see, at least. Even in these back streets there was some lighting, though he was uncomfortably aware of all the shadows and nooks as well.
Heart still racing, he turned and continued walking, ears straining to pick up the noise again.
There it was. Another footfall behind him. Maxton spun around again, calling out, “Who’s there?” and immediately feeling like an idiot for doing so.
Like anyone is going to answer, “Hey it’s me! The murderer!”
He still couldn’t see anyone. He quickly scanned the path ahead of him and to either side, wondering if the audible noises were a distraction while he was being surrounded. Should he portal out of here now and try again another time?
This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. Why did I think this was a good idea?
Eyes straining, he began to move slowly backwards, deciding that if he could ease his way back to a main thoroughfare he would be safe again. Walking like this was extremely difficult, as he was moving backwards while looking in all directions in the semidarkness and trying to block out the noises of talking and traffic a mere block away.
Another noise caught his attention, something heavy hitting the ground in the direction of the main roadway.
Are there more than one of them or did the first person move to block me from getting back to safety?
He gripped his emblem harder and began to pull his focus together. He would need clarity in order to summon the door, and though he had sworn he would never use his Gift again unless he had to—that awful dungeon with the screaming woman had terrified him sufficiently—he began to call the door, all the while stumbling backwards.
Maybe it’s just a normal, run-of-the-mill criminal, he assured himself, as his first attempt at summoning the door failed. The ripples rose up in front of him like always, but lost
their shape and collapsed as another noise—closer to him—spiked his concentration.
If it was the Provo, I’d be able to see them.
As far as he knew, not even the Provo-Majors knew how to make themselves invisible yet, though on second thought, if they could make themselves invisible how would he ever know…?
His second door dissipated as his fear increased.
“Damn it!” he cursed aloud, abandoning pretense and running down the street, hoping to outpace his attacker long enough for him to either get to safety or form a portal. His communicator buzzed again, but he didn’t even stop to silence it.
There was no noise behind him, which was more terrifying than relieving because it meant he had absolutely no idea where his would-be attacker was. While he wanted to believe it meant he wasn’t being followed and was simply being paranoid about innocent noises before, he was uncomfortably aware of the fact that the Provo-Major could fly in their heavy armor and had no need to run behind him.
He stopped on a dime, throwing all of his concentration into his Gift and suppressing any fear of returning to the unknown dungeon.
This time the door held, rippling into life in front of him and snapping into place. Maxton had no idea what it was connected to—he hadn’t had a conscious thought or place in his head when he formed it—but he stepped through it without hesitation and closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he was stunned to find himself still outside. At first he thought the portal hadn’t worked at all and he’d simply taken a step forward. He whirled around to look in all directions for the assailant before his senses caught up with him.
While he was still outdoors, he was in a different part of the city than before. The area was well-lit and residential. Most of the houses nearby had the lights off, but a few were still on, and the glow of a television flickered in one nearby window.
There was no sign of anyone else on the street with him, and as Maxton gradually calmed down he realized he knew where he was.
